Immune
by Brunette
Summary: Beni stared down at the shrunken, decayed face and sighed. He wasn't sure what serving Imhotep was going to entail, exactly, but he didn't think he could take much more of listening to the Creature sobbing over another mummy. [one-shot]


_**Author's Note.** The idea for this occurs to me every time I watch the movie, but this is my first time actually giving it a shot. It's kind of one of those "but of course" things about the plot, but I haven't written a story (nor seen one) on it before. I'd like to do one after Imhotep has captured Evelyn, because I think that would be great, but that's a story for another day._

_I probably don't have to tell ya'll this, but all of the dialogue is in Ancient Hebrew (with the except of one Hungarian line, indicated with italics). I didn't see any reason to especially indicate the Hebrew; I think it's distracting if it takes up the whole story._

**_Disclaimer. _**_The characters of The Mummy are the property of Universal Studios._

* * *

_"It is better to be the right hand of the Devil than in his path. As long as I serve him, I am immune."_

**Immune**

It was the kind of thing that haunted Beni's nightmares and the various folk stories of his childhood, rotting flesh and exposed gray bones and leering, slimy eyeballs. Beni didn't know much about the world, really, having no formal education to speak of, but he'd grown up around enough ghost tales and Gypsy legends to keep him appropriately superstitious of all things cursed or possibly cursed. And now, all of his frightful reverence - long a source of jeering from those who considered themselves part of a more civilized, scientific world - was proven right. Here he stood before the most hideous and terrifying creature he could imagine, and he was going to live to tell the tale.

O'Connell probably couldn't even say that.

And Beni was content to know that his long-alleged superstition and a rabbi's (well, rabbi_ impersonator's_) knowledge of Biblical Hebrew was not only enough to secure his survival, but also enough to guarantee him wealth beyond his wildest dreams. He'd take his fortunes as they came, even if it did mean having to hang around a walking corpse. He supposed the smell of rot and decay wasn't that bad. He'd get used to it. He always could get used to undesirable conditions if there was the promise of reward.

"What do you call yourself, slave?" the Creature asked in its dry, raspy voice.

Beni raised his eyebrows and told it, and then grappled his way through the antiquated language he (regrettably) hadn't used much since being discovered in the midst of the very crime that put him in the French Foreign Legion in the first place:

"And what do you call yourself, my prince?"

"My name was taken from me when I was cursed," it growled. "But risen anew, I reclaim it again. I am the High Priest of Osiris, Imhotep."

Beni frowned in concentration until he was certain he understood what the Creature had told him. The last half of it meant nothing to him, but he was reasonably sure the thing had just told him its name was Imhotep.

"Ah, most impressive," Beni said. He scurried to keep up with Imhotep's long, determined strides through the maze of Hamunaptra's dark corridors. "And why were you cursed?"

Imhotep stopped, and turned his bugging eyeballs to Beni in surprise. Or at least what Beni thought was surprise. There wasn't enough of Imhotep's face to really tell what expression he had on. As always, Beni chose to assume he was probably annoyed:

"Unjust though it must assuredly was," he added quickly.

Imhotep heaved something like a breath that made the thready remnants of his ribcage rattle. "For love," he said quietly. He stared down at his horrible rotten feet.

"Such a tragedy," Beni said, trying not to make the way he glanced around the narrow hallway too obvious.

"She was the Pharaoh's mistress," Imhotep told him in a tone that might have been melancholy if his vocal chords hadn't been dry and thin as paper. "Soon to be his bride."

Beni nodded solemnly in the strange and uncomfortable silence that followed.

"She did not love him," Imhotep said at last, coming to a slow stop in a large dark room that felt quite deep under the city's surface. "Never would I dare to seduce a woman away from the man she loved."

Beni coughed nervously. "Nor I, my lord."

He couldn't quite tell, but Imhotep's eyes seemed skeptical when he glanced his way. Then again, perhaps Beni was just so accustomed to such a reaction that he'd grown to expect it.

"I loved her...as no man has ever loved a woman," Imhotep said. "I loved her with every breath, with every aching part of my soul and my body, I longed for her." He turned and looked at Beni desperately. "And she for me."

Beni bit back a smirk and nodded gravely, his eyes as wide and earnest as he could possibly make them. "I am sure you were most irresistible."

Imhotep let out a noise that sounded like it might have been a scoff, coming out of a live person. "I am not speaking of charm, slave. I am speaking of love." The knotty flesh around his brow bunched up in something like a studious furrow, and he demanded. "Do you know of what I speak? Love?"

"But of course," Beni lied, though his eyes must have looked suspect.

"To love a woman with all of you, to burn for her and no other?"

_"Well, I have never been one to be too picky,"_ Beni muttered under his breath in Hungarian. Imhotep looked perplexed by what had certainly sounded like a strange stream of noises, and Beni offered him a dubious smile. "Of course, my prince, of course. What man has not loved as you say?"

Imhotep sighed again, shaking his head. He led Beni further into the room, to an enormous black marble table where a small, slender corpse lay wrapped and mummified. Beni frowned down at it and tried to hide the disgusted wrinkle in his lip.

"So this is her, huh?"

Imhotep nodded thoughtfully, waving a hand over her face. "This is my Anck-su-namun."

"Even beautiful in death," Beni said. He'd actually meant that as a joke, but Imhotep nodded his head in agreement.

"She was perfect. A goddess among women, such that all others looked course and fiendish by comparison."

Beni stared down at the shrunken, decayed face and sighed. He wasn't sure what serving Imhotep was going to entail, exactly, but he didn't think he could take much more of listening to the Creature sobbing over another mummy.

"She enchanted me like powerful magic," Imhotep said quietly. "We had no choice...no choice but the kill the pharaoh." He turned abruptly to Beni, a fierce determination in his voice. "All other gods falter before love. Even pharaoh himself. We killed him. But we were discovered. Anck-su-namun killed herself to avoid capture, and I swore to resurrect her body so that we may again become one. I have suffered thousands of years while that promise remained unconsummated, but now, at last, I shall feel the warm embrace of my beloved again."

Beni cleared his throat and shifted his weight, managing to nod despite the skeptical way he kept glancing at the shriveled mummy on the table. He was doubtful that either of them could produce a very warm embrace in those putrid, shrunken bodies. But hell, he'd never been in love.

If this is what being in love looked like, though, he was content to avoid it indefinitely.

"Tell me how I can be of service in your noble pursuit, my prince," Beni said in his most saccharine voice.

Imhotep turned and looked at him with his warped, ridiculous remains of a face.

"We will find the despicable thieves who have stolen Anck-su-namun's sacred jars. With their bodies, I will again become a true man. And then..." His eyes drifted back to Anck-su-namun, and his hand hovered over her face again. "We will capture the human sacrifice of my choosing, and with her body, resurrect Anck-su-namun to her former glory."

Beni frowned curiously. "But how will you resurrect her?"

Imhotep might have scoffed. "With the black Book of the Dead, of course."

Beni tried not to roll his eyes at Imhotep's condescending tone. Like he was supposed to know that. Imhotep was in for a rude awakening if he thought just anyone could help him navigate modern-day Cairo with an outdated language like Hebrew.

Imhotep turned away from the stone slab, his entire shriveled body rising and falling with a heavy sigh.

"I can feel the passage of many years in my bones," he said suddenly. "Tell me who is pharaoh of the United Kingdom of Egypt?"

Beni grumbled a whiny sigh. Speaking of having to explain the modern world with useless Hebrew...

Inasmuch as he could, Beni struggled to explain the British Empire, which was no small task considering the fact that Imhotep had never heard of Great Britain, and Beni's knowledge of the Empire (and all governing bodies) was basically limited to knowing the language of the people who were arresting him. After several minutes of floundering, Imhotep waved his rotting paw dismissively and said:

"It is no matter. When I have achieved invincibility, all empires will fall at my feet, and every king with prostrate himself before the throne of Imhotep."

Beni eyed him in something like suspicion for a moment. He probably should have figured out sooner that world-domination was the ultimate aim of an undead mummy-demon-thing. Maybe all of Imhotep's blubbering over his lost love had distracted him. He quickly resumed a humble and subservient expression, and bowed at his waist in a manner he assumed people probably did without flippancy back in Imhotep's day.

For what it was worth, Beni _might_ have been a little flippant about it.

"I am honored to serve your every whim, my prince."

He kept his eyes down as he straightened again, because he knew his greedy smirk would betray him. Had he been looking up, though, he might have been able to flinch away before Imhotep put the bony remains of his hand on his shoulder. Beni bit back a yelp and trembled in disgust.

"You will be rewarded richly for your loyalty."

For probably the first time in their conversation, Beni smiled genuinely. Because even though he was perpetually accused of being otherwise, Beni was more than capable of loyalty. _More_ than capable. It just happened that a sparse few relationships in his life were really worth the trouble of loyalty. He wasn't the kind of person who'd just give something for nothing. He wasn't a fool.

"We may take our leave now," Imhotep said, letting his hand drift back to his side. Beni breathed a sigh of relief and desperate resisted the urge to dust off the powdery mummified grime that had flaked onto his shoulder. Imhotep turned back sorrowfully to Anck-su-namun, and shook his head. "My cause is just. I died for love, and resurrected, I live for love. I would not have you or any man think I am driven by the lust for power. That is part of it, I readily admit. But that is so very, very little of it. All I long for is the hope of seeing my precious Anck-su-namun face-to-face again."

"A must noble cause," Beni said in a half-hearted rush, shifting his weight nervously back in the direction they had come. At last Imhotep took the first step away from the table.

"Love is a heady drink, slave," Imhotep said, dark and serious. "Its force is such that no man might withstand it."

Beni nodded, and allowed himself to fall back a step from Imhotep's determined strides. Behind the Creature's back, Beni was able to roll his eyes. Imhotep had the power of the Ten Plagues, and the promise of immortality - which was more than a certainty, thanks to how stupid those Americans were. He was going to rule the world and no one would be able to stop him...and yet he was reduced to a sniveling rotten ball of lovesick idiocy. Didn't Imhotep know that once he had taken the whole world, he could have any woman - _every_ woman - he wanted? He could go to Cairo, become a "whole man" using the Americans' bodies (however the hell that worked), and do anything he wanted. But instead of taking over the world and demanding history's largest tribute, he was going to come back here, sacrifice somebody, and probably weep like a little girl just to lay eyes on this woman (who couldn't_ possibly_ be as great as he remembered).

Force of love, his ass. More like the force of stupidity.

Ah, well, though. While Imhotep was falling at some undead slut's feet, Beni would be making off with riches the likes of which no one had ever seen. He'd have marvelous houses and food and clothes and automobiles. He'd have dozens - no, _hundreds_ - of women so beautiful that Imhotep would look like a pathetic fool, devoting himself to a dog like Anck-su-namun.

Beni could withstand the force of love, especially if this is what it looked like. _Just watch,_ he thought, _that woman will be running everything. She probably already has his balls in some special sacred jar_. Beni wasn't going to be caught in anything so stupid. He'd never fall all over himself like a fool just for some woman and some idiotic concept of what it meant to be in love. No one would ever have a hold of him like that.

He was immune.

**end.**


End file.
